Embedded Files
What is a community?
To answer the essential question, we set out to build a mental structure to help us understand individual concepts of communities by obtaining new information and connecting it to things we already know and have experienced. Through guided inquiry, active class discussions and immersive activities, these connections formed the structure of our learning.
We journeyed through books and stories to discover that our school and classroom is a community. We connected to our collective experiences and other things we know to determine the values we share as a classroom community. We read many books with stories about kindness and continue to practice, with loving reminders, everyday.
We read many books and videos about the structures of a community, and the essential people and places. We connected this new information to our collective experiences and current knowledge about the world around us.
Once we had consolidated understanding of individual concepts of community, we immersed further into transfering the connections to our daily lives and environment. In this case, connect the learned concepts of a community to our own school neighborhood community. We studied, noticed, and wondered through laminated photographs around our classroom of familiar buildings and houses surrounding the school neighborhood. So many excited exclamations of "I know that place! We drive by there to go to my house!"
We used Google Earth to study the location of community buildings in relation to where we live and go to school. To see the location of their houses in relation to the school and peers was one of the kids' favorite activity.
Each student chose what they wanted to build. We collected materials and started the process of constructing.
The building process supported foundational fine motor skills, time management, and cooperation.
We added murals to some of our mini community buildings. The mini mural is a coloring page designed by Rafael Lopez, the artist that designed the Mt. View School mural. Rafael Lopez is pictured below on the left in front of our school mural.
This project addresses the following Calif. State Standards
•Model shapes in the world by building shapes from components
•Compose simple shapes to form larger shapes.
•Correctly name shapes regardless of their orientations or overall size.
•Describe objects in the environment using names of shapes, and describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to.
•Construct maps and models of neighborhoods, incorporating such structures as police and fire stations, airports, banks, hospitals, supermarkets, harbors, schools, homes, places of worship, and transportation lines.
•With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
•Spell untaught words phonetically, drawing on phonemic awareness and spelling conventions.
•Identify real-life connections between words and their use
•With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.
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